An Okotoks rink found its return to the Juvenile curling circuit a little more challenging than they expected.
A week after competing for the Junior provincial title, the Okotoks Curling Club’s Kyler Kleibrink rink had their ups and downs at the Juvenile Districts, but managed to weather the storm and win the B event 6-4 over the Brett Goebel foursome, Jan. 22 at the Hanna Curling Club, and qualify for the southern playdowns.
Kleibrink, along with third Geoff Nicholson, second Colin Peterson and lead Chris Sprinkhuysen, said his team was guilty of overconfidence going into the event, featuring curlers aged 17 and under, after having competed with the best in Alberta up to the age of 21 in the Junior circuit.
“We thought it was going to be really easy because of course the five year age difference and that definitely was not the case because we qualified (for southerns) out of the A for Juniors and the B for Juvenile,” Kleibrink said.
“We kind of just played down to everyone’s level.”
The Okotoks curlers opened the districts with a 5-3 loss to Goebel in the A event, pushing Kleibrink down into the B bracket where his team notched a 7-6 win over Airdrie’s Matt Romero rink followed by a narrow 5-4 victory in the B semifinal at the expense of the Bowyer rink out of Medicine Hat.
Then Kleibrink was given a second opportunity against Calgary’s Goebel rink in the B final on Jan. 22.
Kyler’s coach and father Richard Kleibrink said a better start in the rematch with Goebel was instrumental to their victory.
“In the first game we let them get ahead quite early and (in the B final) we kind of stuck with them early and slowly got the lead,” Richard said. “We ended up making them look at two with his last rock, putting a little bit of pressure on them and (Goebel) tried to make a double and just jammed it.”
The 16-year-old Kleibrink, a Grade 11 student at Foothill Composite High School in Okotoks, said the uneven performance in Leduc humbled his team at the Juvenile level and could end up being a blessing in disguise for his rink as it prepares for the southern playdowns.
“That weekend sort of put our confidence back down and now we know that there’s hard teams and we have to practise,” Kleibrink said. “We’re definitely not the favourite anymore.”
The Juvenile Men’s Southerns are hosted by the Garrison Curling Club in Calgary from Feb. 3-5. The qualifiers from the event will move on to the Juvenile Provincials, March 2-4 at Edmonton’s Thistle Curling Club. For more information log on to www.saca.ca.
